Tag: Dennis Muilenburg

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Boeing ex-CEO’s new tech venture raises $240M

Dennis Muilenburg
At the 2018 GeekWire Summit, GeekWire’s Alan Boyle chats with Dennis Muilenburg, who was Boeing’s CEO at the time. (GeekWire Photo)

New Vista Acquisition Corp., the blank-check company founded by former Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg to prime the pump for a future high-tech acquisition, went on the market today with an initial public offering valued at $240 million. That’s significantly higher than the originally planned $200 million offering.

The IPO comes a little more than a year after Boeing fired Muilenburg amid controversy over his handling of the company’s 737 MAX crisis. Boeing is still dealing with the financial and reputational aftermath of two catastrophic crashes in late 2018 and early 2019, the worldwide grounding of the 737 MAX fleet that resulted, and deep questions that were raised during investigations into Boeing’s practices.

Boeing is now well into the 737 MAX fleet’s return to service under Dave Calhoun, Muilenburg’s successor as Boeing CEO.

During his time at Boeing, Muilenburg was a strong advocate for technologies focusing on advanced air mobility and autonomous flight — the sorts of technologies that could spawn new types of electric-powered, vertical takeoff and landing vehicles, or eVTOLs. Such craft are also known as air taxis, personal air vehicles or flying cars. Many of Boeing’s efforts in that market have been put on hold due to the financial impacts of the 737 MAX crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.

New Vista, which has Muilenburg as chairman and CEO, says it will focus on businesses operating in the space, defense and communications industries, as well as advanced air mobility and logistics. The company is widely expected to target an eVTOL venture for a merger or acquisition.

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Self-driving tractors: Next frontier for Boeing’s ex-CEO

Dennis Muilenburg
Dennis Muilenburg, who was then Boeing's CEO, speaks at the 2018 GeekWire Summit. (GeekWire Photo / Dan DeLong)

It’s been almost a year since Boeing fired CEO Dennis Muilenburg over his handling of the 737 MAX crisis, but now he’s found a new role in the manufacturing industry — as an investor and adviser at a company building self-driving electric tractors.

California-based Monarch Tractor says Muilenburg, who grew up on a farm in Iowa and served as a Boeing engineer and executive for more than 30 years, will bring his experience in the aerospace world to agricultural technology.

“Monarch is at the perfect intersection of my experience paths,” Muilenburg said in a news release.

The company unveiled its “driver optional” tractor just last week. The electric vehicle is designed to perform pre-programmed tasks in farm fields, but also will be capable of being driven either remotely or in the cab. The first tractors are due to be shipped in the fall of 2021, at a starting price of $50,000.

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Reactions to Boeing CEO’s departure reflect relief

Dennis Muilenburg at hearing
Relatives of those killed in 737 MAX accidents hold up pictures of their loved ones as Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, at lower left, prepares to testify before a Senate hearing on Oct. 29. (C-SPAN Video)

In the wake of Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg’s ouster, lawmakers and union leaders said they hoped the leadership change would help the aerospace giant deal with the repercussions of two catastrophically fatal accidents involving 737 MAX airplanes and win back the public’s confidence.

Some said the departure was long overdue.

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What brought down Boeing’s CEO, and what’s next?

Boeing CEO in training jet
Boeing test pilot Steve “Bull” Schmidt points out features in the cockpit of a prototype T-X training jet to Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing’s then-CEO, during a 2017 tryout. (Boeing Photo)

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg’s departure sends a message that the troubled company is going back to basics. But in this case, the basics have less to do with nuts and bolts, and more to do with information.

Information technology rather than flawed hardware has been at the root of Boeing’s most recent troubles — including the problematic automated control system that’s thought to have caused two catastrophic 737 MAX accidents.

Although the roots of that problem predate Muilenburg’s ascension to the CEO role in 2015, Boeing’s board of directors had clearly lost patience with the way he handled efforts to recover from the crisis. That has to do with information technology, as well as plain old information.

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Boeing CEO rebuffs idea of resigning over 737 MAX

Dennis Muilenburg
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg takes questions at a news conference in Chicago. (AP via YouTube)

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg stuck to his positions on the safety of the 737 MAX airplane today during a contentious annual shareholder meeting and news conference in Chicago.

Muilenburg took questions in a face-to-face public forum for the first time since last month’s grounding of the 737 MAX due to concerns raised by two catastrophically fatal crashes last October and this March.

At one point, a reporter asked Muilenburg whether he’d resign.

“My clear intent is to continue to lead on the front of safety and quality and integrity,” he replied. “That’s who we are as a company.”

Muilenburg said that he’s been talking with factory workers in Renton, Wash., and with Boeing test pilots over the past few weeks.

“To the core of our people, they care about this business and the safety of our airplanes,” he said. “That’s what I’m focused on.”

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Boeing CEO would ‘absolutely’ go to Mars

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CNBC’s Becky Quick, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson look on as Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg talks about his Mars ambitions. (CNBC / BRT via YouTube)

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg often says that the first person to set foot on Mars will get there on a Boeing-built rocket, but at today’s Business Roundtable CEO Innovation Summit, he made it personal.

“Would you go?” CNBC anchor Becky Quick, the moderator for today’s panel on trends in American innovation, asked Muilenburg.

“I would,” the CEO answered.

“Really?” Quick said.

“Absolutely,” Muilenburg said.

Muilenburg made repeated reference to spaceflight and Boeing’s plans to participate in missions to the moon and Mars in the context of the company’s farthest-flung frontiers for innovation.

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Boeing reports financial pluses (and a few minuses)

Dennis Muilenburg
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg says the supply chain for 737 jet production is returning to a healthy condition. (Boeing Photo)

Boeing’s third-quarter financial results exceeded expectations, leading the company to raise its outlook for the full year — and leading investors to bid up Boeing’s share price.

Adjusted earnings per share amounted to $3.58, which was nearly 4 percent higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate and 37 percent higher than the year-ago figures. Total revenue was $25.1 billion, 4 percent higher than last year’s third quarter.

Boeing updated its guidance for 2018, raising its revenue projection by $1 billion to the range of $98 billion to $100 billion. Projected earnings per share got a similar boost, rising 60 cents to the range of $14.90 to $15.10.

“With growing markets and opportunities ahead, our team remains intensely focused on growth, innovation and accelerating productivity improvement to fuel our investments in the future,” Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said today during a conference call with reporters and analysts.

On the plus side, Boeing pointed to higher-than-expected margins on 787 Dreamliner jet sales and strong operating performance on commercial aircraft production programs. The company also scored a hat trick for defense contracts, winning the Air Force’s go-ahead to build T-X training jets and MH-139 helicopters, as well as the Navy’s nod for MQ-25 drone tankers.

Boeing took a $691 million charge to cover investments related to those contracts, which was partially offset by the $412 million benefit of a tax audit settlement.

There was also a $176 million charge related to delays in delivering the Air Force’s KC-46 tanker. Muilenburg said the first deliveries were now on track for the fourth quarter, reiterating a schedule he laid out earlier this month at the GeekWire Summit. Boeing has absorbed more than $3 billion in cost overruns on the fixed-price KC-46 contract.

Muilenburg said Boeing was making progress on supply-chain snags that resulted in a logjam of unfinished 737 jets at its Renton factory this summer. “We’re continuing to ramp up on our recovery plan,” he said.

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Watch Boeing’s CEO fly in a training jet

Boeing CEO in training jet
Boeing test pilot Steve “Bull” Schmidt points out features in the cockpit of a prototype T-X training jet to Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing’s CEO, president and chairman, (Boeing Photo)

One of the things I learned about Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg is that he loves to fly the aircraft his company makes, even when they’re high-performance military jets.

Take the next-generation T-X training jets, for instance: Last week, Boeing won a $9.2 billion contract to provide hundreds of the planes, plus simulators and services, to the Air Force. The first deliveries aren’t due until 2023, but Muilenburg has already been in the cockpit of a T-X prototype — even though he’s an engineer and a manager, not a pilot.

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Boeing CEO foresees aerospace traffic system

Alan Boyle and Dennis Muilenburg
GeekWire’s Alan Boyle listens to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg during a fireside chat at the GeekWire Summit in Seattle. (Photo by Dan DeLong for GeekWire)

A decade from now, Boeing will still be primarily known as an airplane company, the company’s CEO says. But some of the things we’ll call airplanes might be what we’d call rocket ships today. And whatever you call them, Boeing will make them.

That’s the vision laid out today at the GeekWire Summit by Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing’s CEO, president and chairman. Rather than seeing a sharp division between the world of atmospheric flight and the world of rocket launches, Muilenburg sees a continuum that stretches from personal-sized air taxis to traditional aircraft to hypersonic transports to a whole family of Boeing-built commercial spacecraft.

“Within a decade, you’re going to see low-Earth-orbit space travel become much more commonplace,” he told me. “Not only going to the International Space Station, as we will today, but also other destinations in space. Space tourism, space factories … that whole ecosystem is evolving, and we’ll be deeply involved in the transportation system that will enable access.”

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How Boeing CEO plants seeds of tomorrow’s tech

Dennis Muilenburg
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg grew up on a farm in Iowa. (Boeing Photo)

Dennis Muilenburg is leading Boeing into a second century of innovation with dreams of hypersonic flight, self-flying planes and journeys to Mars. But to lead the way, the 102-year-old company’s CEO, chairman and president turns to the values he learned from his dad growing up on a farm in northwest Iowa.

“He was never a big business executive, but at his core he taught me about integrity, the value of hard work, the fundamentals,” Muilenburg, 54, recalled during a recent conference on innovation. “And even in a big business, those work.”

Boeing certainly qualifies as a big business, and since Muilenburg took on the top post in 2015, the company’s ambitions have become even bigger.

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